Tag Archives: Muslim Turks

After my post “Hate will never win,” at least one website stated that I support guns in church. This is not the case. Jesus Christ said: “They that live by the sword shall die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52). I do not feel it is appropriate for people to carry a weapon in church. I will, however, add that I do feel this is a matter of personal conviction.

Forty years ago my wife and I lived in Rhodesia where I worked as a District Officer in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This meant that I worked in the administration of tribal areas under a District Commissioner. Although the area we lived in was relatively peaceful, there was a civil war going on and we were allowed to carry guns to defend ourselves. District Officers had the most dangerous job in the country – many were killed including my predecessor Ian Fyffe and a colleague Jimmy Souter.

I chose not to carry a gun, based on the scripture quoted above.

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On the same website, it was suggested that I support Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton. For the record, I do not support either.

Mr. Trump sees Islam as the problem in the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando. Mrs. Clinton blames guns. Note the following comment from Tuesday’s Wall St Journal:

The Choice
“As the presidential campaign unfolds, Americans will get the chance to decide, in the wake of the Orlando shooting, what kind of approach they favor to combat jihadist terror. This election’s two candidates, more than any other presidential contenders in the era of terrorism, present starkly different profiles on the subject, notes our Washington bureau chief Gerald F. Seib. Donald Trump appeared to hint Monday that President Barack Obama may be sympathetic to radical Islamists he said inspired the gunman in the nightclub attack. Mr. Trump also criticized both the president and Hillary Clinton for what he claims are lax immigration laws that contributed to the rampage. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, pushed for stricter gun laws, including the reinstatement of a ban on the sort of assault weapons used by the Florida gunman. (WSJ “The 10-Point” by Gerard Baker, 6/14/16)

Why does it have to be one or the other?

I remember some years ago a Canadian MP (Member of Parliament) explaining to an American audience the difference between a republic and a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. In the United States, on every issue, he explained, the country quickly divides, with both sides running rapidly towards the barricades. In the Canadian system, on the other hand, both sides start opposed, but gradually work toward the center to achieve a compromise.

America is the only country in the western world where parents and grandparents have to worry on a daily basis about their children and grandchildren going to school. I called the school of one of my grandchildren recently, concerned about security. I was partially reassured, but only partially. I do think more can be done, within the parameters of the Second Amendment, which reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” At the time this was written, the threats were both foreign and domestic. That remains the case today and would include ISIS and those inspired by ISIS, like Omar Mateen.

The right to bear arms goes back a thousand years – it is not peculiarly American.

It was a medieval English king who first ordered that every male over the age of 14 carry a lethal weapon to defend himself against the French. For centuries the law required that all males do four hours of archery practice after church on a Sunday. Again, this was because of the threat from France. English colonists had the right to bear arms before the American Revolution, which would not have happened if the people could not carry guns. In the French and Indian Wars they had to protect themselves against the Indians – and the French! Today, the threat is more from radical Islamists and domestic terrorists. People need to be able to defend themselves, but a balance has to be struck. Adam Lanza and Omar Mateen – and others — have shown the need for this.

Mrs. Clinton is right on this issue – and may win the election because of her stance. People are scared and may think that banning assault weapons will stop terror attacks.

But, having said that, I believe that the greater problem lies in our immigration policies. On this Trump is right. Something needs to be done. As if to emphasize this point, an ISIS terrorist went to the home of a French couple barely 24 hours after the attack in Florida, shot dead the man and stabbed his partner to death, all in the presence of their three-year-old son. On the same day, a 54-year-old Muslim immigrant seized hostages at a Wal-Mart in Amarillo, Texas, holding them for two hours, before he was shot. Together with the massacre in Florida, the only factor common to all three incidents was the Muslim factor; yet the public is being told the first was due to homophobia and the latter was a “work-related incident.” At least the French admitted the involvement of ISIS. When are we in the US going to wake up?

When Mrs. Clinton and President Obama ridicule Trump for his stance on Muslim immigration, they are showing an appalling ignorance of history. Islam tried to conquer the West a number of times in previous centuries. We are now living through the latest Islamic expansion into the West, made possible by the naivety of political correctness. The two liberal leaders are also hiding the fact that their best friend and closest advisor, respectively, are both Muslims and that the Clinton Foundation receives a lot of donations from the Middle East, surely a conflict of interest.

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While we are on the subject of Muslim immigration, I mentioned in a recent blog, “Confusion Reigns,” that Japan has not got a problem with Islamic terrorism because they don’t allow Muslim immigration.

Within 24 hours of my posting the article, the BBC had a segment on Muslim immigrants to Japan. The BBC was critical of the fact that Japan was not doing enough to help refugees by taking in Syrian and other immigrants. It was mentioned that, in 2015, Japan only took in 24 Muslims. I checked with another source that said it was 27.

It should be noted that Germany took in one million in the same year (not all Muslims), and is expected to take in a further half a million this year. Additionally, Chancellor Merkel is ready to give 80 million Muslim Turks visa free travel within the EU.

So Japan has taken in some Muslims, but hardly enough to threaten the security of the country. In fact, it’s hardly enough for a single mosque!

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Since my last posting, it has been revealed that Omar Mateen was a “closet gay,” who regularly frequented the nightclub he attacked. I am reminded of an article in “Science” magazine written in the late 90’s. The article showed that scientific research done on heterosexual males showed that the more anti-gay men were, the more likely they were to have the problem themselves. I have often thought of that article in the 17 years since I read it, as I’ve listened to religious leaders and others rant about homosexuals. “Methinks they protest too much.” My apologies to Shakespeare and Queen Gertrude (Hamlet, Act III, Scene II)!

In my last post, I wrote about the fall of Constantinople. In 1453 the city fell to the Muslim Turks and was soon renamed Istanbul.

This post begins with mention of Istanbul, one of the most interesting cities that I have ever visited. Not only was it founded by Constantine the Great in 330, it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, for a thousand years.

When you walk around the old part of the city, you are walking on 1700 years of history.

No wonder so many tourists visit Istanbul. Ten of them were killed this morning, eight of them Germans, when an ISIS suicide bomber from Syria blew himself up. In a statement, ISIS said there would be more and bigger bombs. This was the fourth ISIS attack in Turkey in six months.

Whether or not ISIS was deliberately targeting Germans is not known. The attack was deliberately perpetrated in the tourist area of the old city, close to the Blue Mosque and not far from the Hagia Sophia, a 1500-year-old church built by the Eastern Emperor Justinian in the sixth century. The church has survived a number of earthquakes and the fall of Justinian’s Empire – whether it will survive ISIS remains to be seen. Turkey is likely to see many more terror attacks.

Germany is also likely to suffer at the hands of terrorists, made more probable by Chancellor Merkel’s “open door” policy to Syrian refugees. One million refugees arrived last year. Things are not going well.

On New Year’s Eve, about a thousand Middle Eastern and North African men descended on the area around Cologne Cathedral. During the course of the evening, dozens of German women were sexually assaulted and a few were raped. It turns out that, contrary to claims that almost all the refugees were women and children, in fact 80% were young men!

This has naturally led to greater demands for the refugees to be deported. A big demonstration in Leipzig yesterday got out of hand, adding to Chancellor Merkel’s woes. With more refugees set to arrive, the problem is set to get worse.

Meanwhile, Germany is dealing with foreign policy challenges that threaten the coherence of the European Union, of which Germany was a founder member and is the biggest economy.

German Foreign Policy reports: “High-ranking German politicians are calling for punitive measures against Poland. The Polish government’s measures neutralizing the country’s constitutional court as well as its new media laws are “in violation of European values,” according to Volker Kauder, Chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. The EU member states must now “have the courage to impose sanctions.” “

With the above problems, there may be little time to give any attention to Britain’s campaign for changes to the EU Treaty that would alleviate some of the financial burdens on the UK from its EU membership.

A report in the Guardian newspaper yesterday claimed the EU would play “hardball” with London, as they have nothing to lose. If the UK leaves the EU, it could face punitive measures that would make it harder for the country to trade with its European neighbors.

The same article also pointed out that the Scots are not as keen on leaving the EU as their southern neighbors in England.

A withdrawal from the EU may be a setback for the project of European unity, but it could also lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom.

Adding to my sense of foreboding has been a couple of books I’ve been reading. Perhaps I should stop reading! Then I could stop thinking and become like lots of other people. It’s difficult, though, to watch hours of mindless drivel on television or at movie theaters when there are so many good books to read.

The books I’ve been reading are “The End of Byzantium” by Jonathan Harris and “Isabella” by Kirstin Downey. The latter is about the famous queen of Spain, but includes a long section on the fall of Byzantium and what followed.

Byzantium was the name of the Eastern Roman Empire, founded by Constantine the Great in the fourth century. It survived the fall of the (western) Roman Empire by a thousand years. Byzantium was the greatest power in Christendom during that period. Constantinople, its capital, was known as “the Queen of Cities.”

Yet it fell.

It fell to the Muslim Turks in 1453. It’s fall was as dramatic and interesting as the fall of Babylon to Persia in 539 BC. The consequences for both were dramatic.

Residents of both had considered their capitals impregnable. Most Americans and Britons today would describe their own countries similarly. After all, they have nuclear weapons. The US has the greatest military on earth.

But, as the falls of Babylon and Constantinople show, it doesn’t mean a thing! And, just as the “handwriting was on the wall” for Babylon (Daniel 5), so it is today for the West.

I went to see my primary doctor recently, shortly after San Bernardino. He couldn’t understand why so many people brought up in the United States could become “radicalized.” I know that Britons, Australians, Canadians and people in other western countries don’t understand this, either.

An article in yesterday’s Lansing State Journal called for more Muslim immigration into the US. The reasoning was simple – the more people from the Middle East who come here, the better, because they either go back enthused about the American way of life, or they stay here committed to America.

This is naïve thinking at best. At its worst, it’s downright dangerous.

Both my doctor and this writer represent 1960’s liberal thinking. They believe that our western way of life is superior and that anybody who moves to the West will naturally see things that way given a short period of time to adjust. And their children, naturally, will be just as committed to the American (or British) way of life as anybody else born here, embracing our liberal values.

This reasoning fails to understand that there is a major difference between Islam and the West – one means “submission” (or “surrender”), while the other believes in freedom. These two cannot be reconciled. Any child brought up in the former, while living in the latter, is inevitably going to be confused.

Why can’t people see that?

If they cannot grasp what is written above, then they can at least read some history and learn lessons from the past.

Note the following from “Isabella,” describing the fall of Christian Constantinople to the Muslim Turks. Don’t think this can’t happen again – it’s happening right now in the Middle East as Christians are being driven out by Muslims. After the fall of Byzantium, it happened to other European nations as the Muslims moved into the heart of Europe. Again, hundreds of thousands have moved into central Europe in the last few months.

(When I was on a tour of Turkey a few years ago, I asked our tour guide three times what happened to all the Christians when Constantinople fell to the Muslims. Three times, I failed to get an answer.)

“On the last day, a crowd of men, women, children, nuns and monks, “sought refuge” in Hagia Sophia . . . (the sixth century cathedral built by Justinian) . . . the Turks broke down the doors of the church with axes and dragged the congregants off to slavery. The statues of the saints were smashed; church vessels were seized. “Scenes of unimaginable horror ensued,” historian Franz Babinger writes.”

“The Turkish soldiers killed four thousand in the siege and enslaved almost the entire population of the city. They plundered the churches, the imperial palace, and the homes of the rich, and they did considerable damage to much of the city’s fabled architecture . . . unique and rare classical manuscripts were torn apart for the value of their bindings and thrown into the garbage.” (“Isabella”, page 172, 2014)

“By the end of 1459, all of Serbia had fallen under their control. About 200,000 Serbs were enslaved by the Turks…..Soon, he (Mehmed, the sultan) attacked the city of Gardiki, in Thessaly, killing all 6,000 inhabitants, including women and children. He had accepted the surrender without struggle of the Genoese colony of Amasra, on the Black Sea coast, where he enslaved two-thirds of the population.” (p. 175)

ISIS continues to treat Christians the same way. There was, and is, no respect for other religions.

In the fifth century, the Roman Empire was invaded by barbarians (non-Romans). This is a reason they no longer exist. Spain itself was overrun by Muslims in the eighth century, a reason why Isabella took the stand she did centuries later. When the Holy Land fell to the Muslims, it was necessary for the West to intervene to enable pilgrims to travel there safely. After Constantinople fell, the West was in shock, rather as it would be if the United States fell.

The historian Niall Ferguson wrote after Paris that the West has the feel of Rome about it, that we are in danger of falling the same way; conservative columnist Mark Steyn wrote that “the barbarians are at the gate, and there is no gate!” – a reference to the fact that Angela Merkel and others are welcoming the invaders.

There clearly are genuine and justified concerns about allowing more Muslims into western countries. Just yesterday, the BBC has reported that Germany has been shocked by how many German women were sexually assaulted and even raped over New Years, a direct result of the recent surge in immigration from the Middle East and North Africa.

TV reporters and those who write for newspapers advocating more immigrants are clearly ignorant of history. They endanger all of our lives.

Reporting right now is focused on the growing Saudi-Iranian conflict, a continuation of the 1400-year-old struggle between Sunni and Shia Islam. Neither can respect the other. They just want to kill those who believe differently from themselves. We can see it clearly when looking at the two branches of Islam – why do the same reporters find it so difficult to see the threat Islam poses to Christians and secularists in the West?

Christians for centuries have prayed “Thy Kingdom Come” (Matt 6:10) as Jesus Christ taught us to do in His model prayer. Never has the need for that kingdom been greater. Only He can put an end to false religion and the religious confusion that threatens the end of our civilization.

One thousand years after the Crusades, the Pope is calling for force to be used to protect Christians in the Middle East.

The Catholic website “Crux” is currently leading with the headline: “Vatican backs military force to stop ISIS ‘genocide’.” The news story begins with the following two paragraphs:

“In an unusually blunt endorsement of military action, the Vatican’s top diplomat at the United Nations in Geneva has called for a coordinated international force to stop the “so-called Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq from further assaults on Christians and other minority groups.

“We have to stop this kind of genocide,” said Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva. “Otherwise we’ll be crying out in the future about why we didn’t do something, why we allowed such a terrible tragedy to happen.”

At the same time, the Fox News website’s top story is: “Islamic State intensifies its efforts TO WIPE OUT CHRISTIANITY.”

Meanwhile, there has been another call for a European Army.

Presently, every single country in Europe has its own military. However, many European nations are members of NATO and co-operate greatly on defense. In spite of increasing threats to the peace and stability of Europe, some European countries have been cutting defense expenditure in order to balance their budgets in a time of austerity. This has caused some resentment in the United States. Many feel that Europeans are not pulling their weight. A number of countries are spending less than the required 2% of their budgets on defense.

At the same time, Europeans are concerned that Americans seem intent on raising the stakes in Ukraine by sending more arms to Kiev. This scares some European governments including Germany. Additionally, the US is closing 15 military bases in Europe, as if to emphasize that the country’s priorities are changing.

Europeans see Russia as their greatest threat at this time. So do many members of the US Congress. However, differences remain on how best to handle Russia.

The President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, has called for an EU Army to make the Russians realize that Europe is serious about Russia’s threats (“Jean Claude Juncker calls for EU Army,” The Guardian, 8 March).

In the last twelve months, Russia has invaded and annexed Crimea, continues to occupy (supposedly through surrogates) eastern Ukraine and has increased intimidating military flights over the Baltic countries and the United Kingdom.

But Russia may not be the biggest military challenge Europeans face. Islamic extremism could be an even bigger problem.

The Europeans have to contend with both ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The latter was behind the attacks in Paris in January. ISIS is now at Europe’s back door with a significant presence in Libya, Italy’s former colony, and not that far away from the Italian peninsula. ISIS also now has an ally in Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State a few weeks ago. Boko Haram is causing a great deal of turmoil in Nigeria and neighboring countries, all of which have commercial and historical ties with European countries and the EU.

The Bible highlights the fact that the Middle East is at the center of Bible prophecy. Many of the prophecies in scripture could not have been fulfilled until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire less than a hundred years ago. The subsequent peace treaty created a number of new countries, many of which remain in varying degrees of conflict and instability. Deeper tensions came with the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948. These events have made the final biblical scenario all the more credible.

Daniel 11:40-41 prophecies: “At the time of the end the king of the South shall attack him; and the king of the North shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, horsemen and with many ships; and he shall enter the countries, overwhelm them, and pass through. He shall also enter the Glorious Land (the Holy Land)….”

Earlier in chapter 11 we read a prophecy, written in the sixth century BC, of Alexander the Great. His empire, a fulfilled prophecy, came about two centuries after the prophetic words of Daniel were written. As predicted, his empire was eventually divided between his four generals. Two of these generals founded biblically significant dynasties, one to the north of Jerusalem (the King of the North, or the Seleucid dynasty) and one to the south of Jerusalem (the King of the South, or the Ptolemaic dynasty). These two dynasties were often in conflict. As the Jews were in the middle, they suffered greatly because of them.

After the horrendous climactic events in the middle of the second century BC, the prophecy takes us down to the present time, where, once again, there’s a king of the North and a King of the South. It should be noted that the prophecy has a gap of two thousand years because the Jews did not have a country of their own during that time. Now, once again, they do.

The ancient King of the North was conquered by the Roman Empire in 60 A.D. A new revived Roman Empire is going to emerge as the new King of the North, although it won’t be called by that name. But it will fulfill the prophecy in Daniel 11. It will send troops into the Middle East to deal with the growing threat of Islamic militancy, political turmoil and conflict. A European Army is more likely to be used in this region than against Russia.

But, after intervening in the Middle East, that same army may have to deal with Russia. “But news from the east and the north shall trouble him . . .” (v. 44). It should be noted that Russia, Iran, Syria and a number of central Asian, former Soviet republics, co-operate militarily. If Europe was embroiled in the Middle East, Russia would no doubt take advantage and annex other countries that were formerly in its empire.

This brings us back to the pope’s call for force to be used to save Christians in the Middle East.

In the latter part of the eleventh century, Muslim Turks massacred Christians and treated surviving Christians cruelly. This led to Pope Urban II in 1095 calling for a Crusade against the Muslims, to free the Christians in the Holy Land. The Crusades lasted two hundred years.

Today, it’s not the Turks who are persecuting Christians. It’s ISIS and other extremis groups. And, it’s not just Christians who need protecting. Other minorities also need intervention on their behalf. But, as with events a thousand years ago, it could be the pope who calls nations to arms.

Western civilization is once again seriously threatened. Politicians, never able to see beyond the next election, seem blinded to this reality. The papacy is, once again, more in tune with global reality.

The pope’s call, together with the call for an EU Army, show that the prophecies of your Bible are on track, leading ultimately to the second coming of Jesus Christ to establish His Kingdom.

US President Barack Obama says the US is “not at war with Islam – we are at war with the people who have perverted Islam.” (BBC website, February 18th)

The President continued to explain that socio-economic factors are behind extremist terrorism. If more could be done to help young people in the Mideast find jobs, it would lessen the terror threat. However, this conveniently overlooks the fact that major terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by affluent jihadists. The idea that it’s all due to poverty and unemployment is a throwback to sixties liberalism. Unfortunately, millions of people still think that way, endangering the rest of us.

This comes at a time when ISIS is wiping out Christians across the Middle East, determined to establish “Christian free zones.”

For an alternative view, let’s do something few politicians ever seem to do – look at history.

Muhammed died in 632 AD. At the time of his death, the new religion he started was confined to the Arabian Peninsula. By the end of the seventh century it had conquered the whole of North Africa and a great deal of the Middle East, including Jerusalem, Damascus and Antioch, pushing back the Byzantine and Persian empires. Of course, it’s always possible that the young soldiers of Allah went far afield simply looking for jobs, but that’s not a conclusion you will find in the history books.

Once they had conquered North Africa, they crossed over into Europe, taking over the Iberian Peninsula and remaining there for a few hundred years, ruling what are now Spain and Portugal. In 732 they reached the gates of Paris but were halted in their tracks by a military force led by Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne. If this decisive victory had not taken place, there would be no problem between the West and Islam today, as we would all be Muslims!

Move forward 350 years. By the end of the eleventh century, the Turks were a serious threat to the Byzantine Empire. In 1065, the Turks took control of Jerusalem and massacred 3,000 Christians. Prior to the Turkish invasion, the Saracens controlled the area. They had allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Land. But the Turks made it impossible. In 1095, Pope Urban II called on the countries of Catholic Europe to launch a Crusade against the Muslim Turks. A series of crusades followed until 1291, when the Christians gave up on the idea of ruling the region. It wasn’t until 1917 that a Christian power, Great Britain, would once again dominate the Middle East.

Islam continued its expansionist course, gradually taking more and more territory from what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire. In 1453, its capital, Constantinople, fell to the Muslim Turks. They have controlled it since.

Having conquered the Balkans, the Ottoman Turks twice reached the gates of Vienna at the very center of Europe. Central European nations and the Catholic

Church defeated the Muslims, saving Europe from Islam.

This is not to say there has been peace between the West and Islam ever since. During the period of global British domination, the British fought Islamic extremists in the Sudan in the 1880’s and 90’s, culminating in the battle of Omdurman in September, 1898.

For much of the twentieth century, Islam was kept at bay. Until World War II, most Islamic territory was under European colonial rule. By 1960 this had come to an end. Iran, modern Persia, was the first country to see its government overthrown by radical Islam, in 1979. From that date until the present, the West has been under constant threat from Islam, both Shia Islam (Iran) and Sunni Islam (al Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram to name just three).

With such a long history of Islamic imperialism, how can the president claim that the religion has been perverted by violent extremists? Islam has been a constant threat to the West since its birth in the early part of the seventh century. If anything, the first part of the twentieth century was an aberration, a brief interlude during which Islam was not pushing against the West.

“The rise and expansion of Islam was one of the most significant and far-reaching events in modern history and its impact continues to reverberate in our own times.” (“The spread of Islam from 632,” Collins Atlas of World History, 2003)

Echoing down the centuries, the following statement remains true today. “This expansion owed much to the enthusiasm and religious conviction of the conquerors but it was also facilitated by the war-weariness of the empires of Persia and Byzantium.” (“The Spread of Islam”) Today’s zealots are equally motivated, while the nations of the West, after more than a decade of wars in Islamic lands, are war-weary and clearly in denial about the serious threat to western civilization.

When you look back at history, the threat is clear. In fact, it’s a greater threat now than it’s ever been, simply because there are so many millions of Muslims in our midst already. Which brings us back to our politicians. President Obama is not the only western leader saying that Islam has been perverted by extremists. Following the attacks in Denmark last weekend, the Danish prime minister said much the same thing. The British, German and French leaders have expressed similar sentiments.

Because there are so many Muslims living amongst us today, politicians dare not risk upsetting them. They need their votes. A significant number of constituencies in the United Kingdom, for example, have very large Muslim populations, which could determine the outcome of the election scheduled in May.

The threat should be clear to anyone. Western nations are asleep. But sleep does not last forever. Eventually, it will be time to wake up.

Islam has been pushing against the West for centuries. In modern times, the push of radical Islam has been going on since the fall of the Shah in 1979, half a lifetime ago. When will the “King of the North” arise to fight back?

It should always be remembered that the Vatican is a country, with its own king, the Pope. Historically, Vatican meddling in secular affairs has contributed greatly to human conflict. This is particularly true when it comes to the historic struggle between Islam and Christendom. Popes have been instrumental in leading the West against Islam.

Pope Francis’ visit to Istanbul can hardly be described as pastoral, as there are only 35,000 Catholics in Turkey. It’s therefore safe to assume the visit was political. What did the pope have in mind?

This visit was the fourth time a pope has visited Turkey. The first was Pope Paul VI in 1967. He caused quite an upset when he prayed in the Hagia Sophia, the sixth century church built by the Emperor Justinian. When Istanbul (then called Constantinople) fell to the Muslim Turks in 1453, the church was turned into a mosque. Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Repubic, turned it into a secular museum 80 years ago. Pope Francis was careful not to pray in the 1,500-year-old building, not wishing to provoke Muslim sensibilities.

The visit was intended to improve relations, firstly between the primary leader of Christendom and his equal, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, the 270th person to hold the title. Both churches go back a long way. The historic schism between the two occurred almost a thousand years ago, in 1054. Threatened by secularism and Islamic extremism, both leaders talk about unity, but, after a millennium, it’s not likely to happen. This does not, however, mean they cannot work together.

The pope is also interested in establishing closer relationships with the Islamic world. Unlike the Orthodox Church, there is no primary leader in Islam, but the pope is concerned about the worsening situation in the Middle East. A century ago, most of the countries that are in turmoil today were ruled from Istanbul as regions of the Ottoman Empire, the same Turkish Empire that conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth century. Istanbul was, therefore, a good place to start to reach some sort of rapprochement with Islam.

The pope called on Islamic countries to roundly condemn ISIS and to protect religious minorities in their midst. The whole region has witnessed a great deal of persecution of Christians in recent decades, after centuries of fairly peaceful relations between the two major religions.

With the persecutions in mind, the pope should have asked the religiously conservative leader of Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, what happened to the Christians after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The official answer is that their conqueror, Mehmed I, generously gave them the freedom to practice their religion, as evidenced by the presence of a small community today. Only 1% of the country now is Christian. One thousand years ago, almost all the people were Christians. I asked this question a number of times during a visit to Turkey but never got a truthful answer. History shows that while some fled to Italy (and contributed to the Renaissance), most were killed, sold into slavery or forced to convert.

It’s what we can all expect if ISIS defeats the West.

Is the papacy once again going to lead the West against resurgent Islam?